Straight North

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

PPC was something we were really neglecting, and since bringing Straight North on, we’ve seen a big turnaround. Looking at the analytics, we can see the number and quality of links improving. The traffic being directed to our site is better.

Our site isn’t designed to be a typical marketplace, but we’re seeing an uptick in sales there, too. Whenever we give a new focus to Straight North, we immediately see results from that, even if it’s just an upswing in interest for a product or focus area. 

How did Straight North perform from a project management standpoint?

When someone in one of our divisions approaches me about a new idea, I bring it to Straight North and they get on it. On the flip side, their team has also come to us with their own ideas to try, so their proactive approach has been really beneficial for us. We have the right amount of touchpoints with them, so they’re not overbearing or neglectful—they’re right in the middle. When we need them, they’re there. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

We don’t know what we don’t know, so it’s great when they tell us what to take advantage of. They’ve helped us be successful and moved us toward things we wouldn’t have done on our own. 

It’s also been nice to let them run with the project and we don’t have to worry because we know they’ll come back to us if they run into something. We can trust them, so we don’t have to watch over their shoulders to make sure they’re doing it right. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, our relationship has been good. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Engage them. Even though they come with ideas, it’s still important to ask for new things and not get complacent. We can’t assume they know about our niche business and they can’t be experts in our product, so it’s wise to talk with them. 

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

They helped us sustain profitable growth, which was our biggest organizational goal. They’ve contributed to our two back-to-back years of record sales performance in company history. We didn’t have to overspend to achieve that. They accomplished that by understanding our business and goals. Their team has been able to make sure that we’re seeing optimized growth for the right value. We’ve been very satisfied with the team and the technologies they use.

How did Straight North perform from a project management standpoint?

We’re a seasonal business, making the majority of our revenue within three months out of the year. Because of that, sometimes we touch base every few weeks. Other times, we’re talking every few days. A change in bid strategy in our highest volume months can have a huge impact, so it’s important for us to stay in touch. We also have an annual review that involves our meeting with their wider team to discuss strategy, but we feel like we’re in good hands with the team that we speak to on a regular basis.

They provide weekly and monthly reports as well as track ongoing projects in a Google Sheet. Those files allow us to work collaboratively and provide feedback to each other.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

I value their willingness to tailor their services and support of our business to our seasonal needs. Many agencies struggle with scaling their team up or down depending on the time of year. They’ve offered us a consistent team that knows our business. That kept us from having to educate our partner on our goals whenever a holiday came around. They’re always prepared to increase the frequency of calls and drive revenue when we need that support. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’re looking to tailor and tweak our weekly reports. It’s currently through Excel, but there could be ways to expand our understanding of data to look at trends. It would be great to see further improved data visualization and trending. For the most part, they’ve given us everything we need to be successful.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Treat them as a true partner, bringing them into the business and sharing as much information as possible. We dump a lot of information on them. Making sure they’re aware of our business’s intricacies ensures that they can provide even better services in return. It’s helpful to us to make sure that they understand everything we’re doing strategically around the business.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

The quality of their work has been excellent. Over the past year, we’ve made significant improvements in making ourselves visible and available to those seeking our services.

A major value-add has been the “leads” dashboard, located on Straight North’s web platform, which records interest generated from our website. That’s been very useful for training purposes, and Google Analytics has also been helpful in guiding us through our progress.

How did Straight North perform from a project management standpoint?

We didn’t have any issues. The internal project management platform they shared with us was useful, and Taylor did a great job of staying on the content calendar.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their sales department is very skilled. I got the answers to the questions I had, and they were efficient in setting up a delineated scope of work for us. Also, along with being responsive, Taylor often helped us out with items that were outside of the scope, which we really appreciated.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Early on in the engagement, it took them a while to understand our business, but that’s not unusual since our line of work is quite complex.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Learn as much as you can about your current SEO productivity before you hire somebody.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We get comments from our customers all the time that our site is one of the better-looking ones they’ve seen in the industry. The website looks way more professional than our last one. I’d put an infographic together for our previous website using Microsoft Paint, and I asked Straight North to redesign it. Their designers recreated the infographic to match our new site, and it looks really good. To create backlinks, they shared the graphic with a handful of resources and asked them to link it back to our website; just doing that moved us up quite a bit on Google rankings. 

They’re constantly looking over our website and making sure that all of our keywords are relevant so that we can rank as high as we can. While working with Straight North, we’ve noticed that we rank higher in Google search terms than we did with our previous provider. Our leads have also gone up.

We can now log into the website at any time and make whatever changes we’d like, which is really helpful. Also, the fact that they write blogs is impressive, since we’re in a pretty technical industry. Whoever they have writing blogs requires a good amount of knowledge about chemistry and our products.

How did Straight North perform from a project management standpoint?

They send us monthly reports that go over how the SEO and PPC campaigns are performing, whereas our last provider never sent us anything. Just today, Straight North sent a Word Document stating the changes they want to make to the site and explaining why they want to make them. It’s really big that they’re continually updating the site and looking at what SEO terms are relevant. 

The reports they send also include recommendations. For instance, we were doing a campaign to try and target our competitors’ products. It seemed like a great campaign to us, but after running it for three months and spending a decent amount of money on it, we hadn’t gotten a single lead. Straight North let us know we weren’t seeing results and recommended that we turn it off. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

In short, we’ve been really impressed. I’d say I’ve been most impressed by their promptness. If I ever have a question, I have two different people and an immediate contact I can reach out to, and somebody will get back to me right away.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t have any complaints. Some of the SEO and PPC terms can be hard to understand, but it’s a confusing industry. When I’ve asked them to explain something better, they’ve always been able to.

Any advice for potential customers?

Take advantage of the monthly calls with your account representatives and be prepared to ask as many questions as you have. There’s some confusing jargon with SEO and PPC, and Straight North will easily explain it to you in simple terms so that you can better implement this stuff to improve your marketing.